


Chemical Bonding

by egocentrifuge



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, college fic, description of drug use?, ecstasy to be exact, if you don't like/can't read drugfic, this aint for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 23:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egocentrifuge/pseuds/egocentrifuge
Summary: “Is this - molly?” Rhett asks.Playing it cool, like he knew a lot about drugs and not just what Rhett told him, Link shrugs. Remembers Rhett’s in his own little world right now. Waits, fidgeting, for Rhett to look at him, then shrugs again.“Welcome home?” he hazards. It seems safer thanI wanted to do something for you. Wanted to do something with you.Because look - they don’t get each other birthday presents. And, technically, it’s not Rhett’s birthday yet. Link’s has just gone, Rhett’s isn’t for months still, so this is just…A gift. A surprise. A welcome-home… gesture.





	Chemical Bonding

**Author's Note:**

> i don't endorse drug use, especially not ecstasy. it can exacerbate depression and messed me right up in college. i've wanted to write this fic since I started watching randl, tho... so i wrote it. enjoy.

Link’s a pretty tidy guy, but he’s glad no one’s around to see him bust out the bleach and rubber gloves to really have at the apartment. Gregg went home for the summer, Tim’s moved in with his wife, and Rhett -

Well, Rhett was abroad.  _Had been_  abroad. Was coming home, in fact, today, and Link had spent two weeks telling himself he wasn’t going to scrub the baseboards before realizing at the last second that if he doesn’t he might actually die. He’s half-tempted to call his mom and tell her about it; she’d be proud that he was cleaning like she’d taught him to. But something about the reason  _why_ feels - personal, shameful. The heat in Link’s cheeks might have to do with the fumes, though, and - shoot, that’s right, he’d meant to open a window ages ago.

Link’s just about disposed of the evidence of his nervous energy when the apartment door bangs open and he splashes dirty water down his front with a screech.

Anger and embarrassment war for first priority until Rhett’s laugh booms out. It’s the first time in  _months_ Link’s heard it, and Link forgets to do anything but laugh in response as Rhett drags himself and his luggage through the door.

“It fucking stinks of bleach in here, man,” Rhett says, then, “You wet yourself?” but he’s beaming, and Link lets the bucket fall the rest of the way into the sink in favor of punching Rhett in the arm.

“Screw you, man,” he laughs. Rhett looks - the same, thank goodness, assuaging some primal fear Link had of being left behind, ‘cept his hair needs a trim and he’s got freckles all down his arms. Link feels like he can breathe again - which might just be true, because the door’s still open behind Rhett and the headache Link didn’t know he had is already easing.

“Linkster,” Rhett says, in greeting. “You miss me?”

Link drinks in Rhett’s smile, all seven feet of gangly limbs. “You wish. I’m gonna have a shower.”

“What - no, I just got off a plane, you can’t - ”

There’s a scuffle but Link manages to break free, and the shock on Rhett’s face when he’d felt the strength Link hadn’t had when he’d left is worth every stupid blister Link’s gotten from lifting.

Link takes the opportunity his first shower affords him to muss up the pristine bathroom a little. He can’t have Rhett thinking he’s too special, after all. When he’s finally reached the perfect balance between  _not trying too hard_  and  _still glad you’re back,_  Link’s hair has nearly dried and he splashes some water in it to make it seem more like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

It doesn’t turn out to matter, because when Link struts through the living room on the way to get fresh clothes, towel low on his hips to show off his freaking  _abs_ , Rhett is asleep face-first on the couch, all the windows open and letting in the hot summer air.

“Idiot,” Link tells him, but it’s softer than it might be if Rhett were awake. Link abandons his towel and goes to find a fresh change of clothes.

–

When Link wakes up, he has a moment of disorientation - there’s someone in the apartment, there shouldn’t be anyone in the apartment, they’re going to murder Link or worse, steal their TV -

Then he remembers.  _Rhett_. Link’s eyes open so fast he’s glad he didn’t pop either of them out. It takes a few blinks to orient himself; he’s slumped on the couch and Rhett is gone from where he’d been sprawled out. Before Link can worry too much, though, Rhett’s coming back into view, showered and wearing a fresh change of clothes himself.

Link squints at the colorful shirt long enough that Rhett puffs his chest out.

“It’s the flag,” he says, clearly bragging. Link rolls his eyes and gropes for the PlayStation controller he’d been holding for an excuse when he’d dozed off. It gets the intended response when Rhett vaults over the back of the sofa to thud down next to Link.

“Aren’t you gonna ask how it was, brother?” He looks real stupid with his lip puffed out with that, especially with no chin to speak of. Link eyes Rhett outta the corner of his eye before taking pity on him.

“How was it, Rhett?” Link asks, graciously.

Rhett grins. “It was fucking awesome.”

Link waits, but that’s all that’s forthcoming, and he abandons his search to shove at Rhett. He ain’t mad, not really, but there’s something addictive about getting to hear Rhett’s laugh for the first time in months, feel him warm and shaking under Link’s hands.

They probably woulda been better off not showering, after the sweat they work up in the fight, but as sticky as he is Link feels loose-limbed and sated on his end of the couch. Rhett’s sitting on the floor, eyes closed in contentment like he’s gonna fall asleep again, before his hand comes up holding a small jewelry box Link had forgotten about.

“This was under the couch, Linkster,” Rhett teases, turning it around in his hands. “Didn’t your momma ever teach you to sweep under there?”

Link’s heart is beating impossibly hard in his throat as he kicks his leg out to push Rhett. “Shut up,” he grumbles. “I didn’t clean. But if I did I woulda known it was supposed to be there.”

“Oh yeah?” Rhett’s grinning like he knows Link’s a liar, but he’s staring at the box with more curiosity now. Link swallows with some difficulty.

“You should open it,” he manages. “If you want to, I mean.”

Rhett glances over, something in his face that Link can’t read before he zeroes back in on the cardboard. Link still wishes he woulda decorated it to be less girly, but the act of decorating a random bit of packaging from JC Penny’s seemed more girly than the glitter and ribbon did. But looking at it now in Rhett’s hands, it’s difficult for Link to muster up anything approaching casualness as he waits for Rhett to make up his mind.

Sure as Link knew he would, Rhett takes the top of the box off. Stares at the contents. Lifts, finally, one clear capsule from the bed of cotton.

Look - it’d been part of the packaging, too. Link was a practical man.

“I thought,” Link starts, trying to figure out his motivations as he speaks them into existence. “You know, last summer before graduation, we might not have another chance before we’re supposed to be all respectable and shit.”

Link cringes at the cuss, but realizes as he watches Rhett hold the pill up to the light that nothing he’s said has been heard, anyways.

“Is this - molly?” Rhett asks.

Molly.  _Molly_. That had been the name Link hadn’t been able to remember. He knew it was a girl’s name.

Playing it cool, like he knew a lot about drugs and not just what Rhett told him, Link shrugs. Remembers Rhett’s in his own little world right now. Waits, fidgeting, for Rhett to look at him, then shrugs again.

“Welcome home?” he hazards. It seems safer than  _I wanted to do something for you. Wanted to do something with you._  Because look - they didn’t get each other birthday presents. That’s just how it’s always been, save that one time they bought each other the same CD under the guise of wanting to listen to it themselves. Link’s still got his, though it doesn’t bother him anymore to know Rhett lost his as sure as he did his copy of their oath–Link’s the one to remember things, keep them safe.

Like that month sophomore year Rhett had been trying to track down ecstacy,  _good_ ecstasy, not the pressies - completely different, for some reason Link hadn’t really been listening to. How pissed Rhett had been for a week when all his avenues dried up, then how he’d gotten real into his next thing and forgotten all about it. But Link - Link remembered, and searched, and now, well -

They don’t get each other birthday presents. And, technically, it’s not Rhett’s birthday yet. Link’s has just gone, Rhett’s isn’t for months still, so this is just…

A gift. A surprise. A welcome-home…gesture.

Link’s rethinking it entirely when Rhett pops up from the floor and onto the sofa, just about crushes Link when he leans his weight onto him. Link struggles instinctively before Rhett speaks in his ear, low, “I’m hugging you, you doofus,” and Link settles. He still feels uneasy lifting his hands to pat Rhett’s back, like Rhett’s gonna pull back and laugh at him any second now, but all that happens is that Rhett’s arms tighten around Link before he pulls away.

“How’d you even get this?” Rhett breathes, staring into the box yet again. Link picks at the threadbare cushions rather than meet Rhett’s eyes.

“Oh, you know. I’m pretty street, nowadays.”

Rhett looks over sharply, and Link screws up his face.

“I drove to Asheville, okay?”

Rhett’s eyes don’t bug out like Link expects, and he doesn’t get laughed at. Instead, Rhett looks - weird, and Link’s stomach ties itself in knots for no reason.

“That’s hours away.”

“Yeah, man.” Link scratches his neck, uncomfortable. “I - y'know. You were gone for a while.” It’s not  _I missed you_ , but it still feels just as damning when Rhett looks away quickly.

Link just about loses his lunch when Rhett stands up and starts away, but then Rhett’s talking, quick and excited.

“Oh man, we’re gonna - Link, you’re gonna  _love_ this, I promise - here, will you pick some music out? It’ll go faster now, we’re gonna lose motivation - ”

Rhett’s plans wash over Link like the cool air finally starting to come in through the windows and Link hauls himself upright to do as Rhett says. He heard all this the first time around, when ecstasy was still something Rhett was dreaming about doing and didn’t have in his hands, but there’s some new things Link’d picked up in his Quest for Drugs he doesn’t remember Rhett ever mentioning.

Link slides the CD’s he’d already picked out weeks ago on top of the stereo, then goes to their room to pull out his own special preparations.

“What’s that?” Rhett asks mid-sentence, when he finally returns to the living room with two bottles of gatorade and the Goods. Link looks up from where he’s fastidiously arranging his collection of fabrics - two pairs of stupid fuzzy socks, a textured hoodie Gregg had left behind, and a velvet camisole some girl had forgotten - and starts twirling the cheap head massager he’d bought at a gas station instead.

“It’s, you know.” Link clears his throat. “I talked to the - guy who sold me the stuff, and he said these kinds of things were… nice.” Link wants to feel stupid about it, but Rhett’s eyes are burning with curiosity as he comes to sit next to Link again.

“I should have thought of that,” he mutters, running a hand over the ropey knit of Gregg’s hoodie. “This is - brilliant, Link.” Rhett cuts off weirdly at the end, like there’d been something else he’d wanted to say but forgotten. When Link looks over at him, Rhett thrusts out the orange gatorade, and after it, the box.

Link’s hands are shaking when he takes out one of the pills, but then, that’s nothing new. He mirrors Rhett as he cracks open his drink.

“So we should just,” Rhett says, miming throwing it back. “Go for it, I guess.” His cheeks are pink, his eyes are bright, and for once Link’s not the only one fidgeting, but when Link meets Rhett’s eyes he grins in a way that makes Link’s chest ache. Grins in the same way he had when they’d broken into the school shed and shattered all those windows, the same way he had each time they’d played hookie or broken curfew. Like they’re doing something that’s gonna get them in trouble, but there was nothing Rhett would rather be doing, no one he’d rather be doing it with.

Link toasts Rhett with his gatorade, giddy, and washes the pill down.

–

In the end, Link doesn’t even notice it sneaking up on him. He’s listening to Rhett ramble about his trip as Lionel Richie plays, when he realizes a few things.

One, he’s not jealous anymore, or rather, the ugly twist in his chest has turned into a warm ripple crawling across his body like waves over sand.

Two, he’s touching himself. Not - not like that, but still pretty bad; Link’s hands are chasing the feeling beneath his ribs up and down, up and down. He’s been doing it long enough that his palms are tingling and his nipples are hard where he keeps brushing over them. It makes Link’s thighs tighten to realize what he’s been doing, but that leads into -

Three, Link doesn’t care. He freaking  _doesn’t_. He feels… he feels  _good_ , good enough that the embarrassment bubbles up and pops into a laugh instead of shame.

“Oh my gosh,” he stammers. “This is crazy, Rhett.” He flexes his hands until he can grab the pecs he’d built up over the summer and laughs again at the ripples of sensation. His chest is warmer than his hands, and he feels the contrast in both places. Goosebumps raise pleasantly down Link’s sides as heat spreads up his fingers.

“You’re feeling it, huh?”

Link drags his head up where it’d fallen back when Rhett speaks, because he’d mostly forgotten that he and his newly sparkling body weren’t the entirety of the universe. When his eyes make their way through the light trails Rhett takes his position in their personal galaxy. He’s got both legs drawn up onto the sofa between them and is rubbing them in the same way Link is his chest, the sound of the hair being rustled suddenly the loudest thing in the room.

One moment, Link is wondering what it would feel like to touch Rhett’s hairy legs, the next he’s experiencing it for himself. It’s rough. Dry. Prickly. All of those are good things, right now, and Link barely tamps down on the urge to rub his face against Rhett’s knee like a cat. The touching is weird enough. This is where he should apologize, right?

“Sorry,” he giggles, stilling his hands’ up and down motion but finding himself kneading Rhett’s calf instead. Rhett’s skin is warmer than Link’s had been through his shirt, which makes sense but is so completely crazy at the same time.

“It’s like we’re one person, you know?” Link says, forgetting Rhett wasn’t privy to his private train of thought. He looks up from his absent touching to find Rhett staring at him with his pupils almost completely dilated. His lips are dry, but as Link’s eyes land on then Rhett’s tongue comes out to wet them.

“See?” Link says, laughing again. Rhett’s hands come up to touch Link’s face and it’s not as weird as Link thought it might be - which he can admit, right now, when every twinge of emotion seems to be something enjoyable, that he’s done. Link ain’t scared when he tilts his head, rubs his cheek into Rhett’s touch; it’s hard to be anything but euphoric as Rhett brushes his thumbs over the stubble Link’s decided is his new Thing since he started working out.

It’s new, Rhett running the pads of his fingers across Link’s mouth, his nose, even his eyebrows. But it’s not bad. And it feels freaking amazing, so Link’s inclined to let it happen without dwelling on why they shouldn’t.

Link’s hearing changes focus, again, and for awhile they just explore what it feels like to touch and be touched as Lionel Richie vibrates Link’s soul. Link finds he prefers to grip and rub compared to the way Rhett’s taking in each separate texture with the surface of his hands, fingers twitching like crazy when he encounters something new. For once, Link don’t mind his hair being tugged, not when Rhett’s the one doing it, mouth wide open and brow furrowed like it’s doing something incredible for him. Link bets it is, because he can almost  _feel_ each place he’s grabbing Rhett echoed in his own body.

“Your shirt’s ugly,” Link says at last. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been doing just this, but - he takes a moment to focus, and yeah, the stereo is silent. Link blinks his way back to Rhett’s face and finds Rhett’s eyes glued to his own. When he glances down again, curious to see whether Rhett’s lips are still dry, the tongue comes out again, and Link laughs at the circuit connecting them.

He reaches for Rhett’s hem without being told, lets Rhett help him out of his own shirt in turn, and then Rhett’s dragging his sweaty palms down Link’s abs and  _shit_ , yeah, this is everything he’d wanted.

“Gosh, Link. When did this happen?”

Time is a funny thing, right now, but Link knows the answer like it’s part of who he is.

“When you left,” he mumbles, then, “Don’t leave again, Rhett.”

It feels raw, leaves Link tingling, but it’s no different than the clench and release of his thighs that has him aching pleasantly from how long it’s been happening.

Rhett teeters at the words, like Link’s upset his balance somehow, before he’s falling forward into Link’s chest and sending them sprawling against the cushions. Link laughs; his back’s cool against the worn fabric and his front’s warm and heavy where Rhett is - then abruptly it’s  _hot_ as something else entirely slides across his belly.

When Link manages to navigate the world well enough to look down, he finds Rhett licking up his chest like each bit tastes different. He finds Rhett’s hair and sinks his fingers into the curls, tugs them just because they’re there.

“Don’t leave again,” he repeats. Rhett’s hum vibrates through them both, and Link shivers all over and bucks up against the weight of Rhett’s body, grips Rhett’s hair tighter because it’s his only lifeline in the tidal wave of sensation rising up. If he focuses he can separate it - the friction where he’s still not completely hard, the warm, wet heat of Rhett’s mouth, the way Rhett’s flicking tongue tickles. There’s more than that, though, the emotions: joy, fear, longing, sadness. All of it’s swirling inside him, making him shake with the force of it all.

“Say it,” he urges, because it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world, their world, Link and Rhett and a ratty sofa.

“I love you,” Rhett says, which wasn’t what Link had been demanding, then: “It’s just us. Just us, Link.”

The words rumble through Link’s chest and then his mouth as Rhett shoots up Link’s body to kiss him, and this hadn’t been what Link was asking, neither, but clearly it’d been an oversight. Rhett’s body slots against his like it’d been made for it and Link can’t focus on so many things at once - kissing, being kissed, grinding - so he lays back and lets Rhett handle things while he maps out the planes of Rhett’s back.

It takes a while for Link to surface again, but when he does Rhett’s still a perfect weight on top of him, hips rocking slowly against Link’s, their breath mingling between them.

“I missed you,” Link breathes, finally, the words he hadn’t been able to manage before. Rhett’s shaking all over when he drops his head to bury in Link’s neck.

“I won’t leave again, Link.”

Link blinks up at the halogen stars and lets the promise fill up the parts of him Rhett’d left empty when he’d gone.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at egocentrifuge dot tumblr dot com


End file.
